


The Gallows has Never (Not Even Once)

by 17734



Series: Hilarity in the Gallows [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Never Have I Ever, disturbing but funny imagery, drugs (lyrium)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 07:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1336519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/17734/pseuds/17734
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the suggestion of the wise and very clever Serah Hawke, Grand Cleric Elthina decides the perfect way to mediate the problems of the Gallows is to get a bunch of templars together- plus Orsino- and play a drinking game. With lyrium. Embarrassing secrets abound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gallows has Never (Not Even Once)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello; I'm trying my hand at humor. I'm terrible at it, by the way. Please do not expect to be impressed.  
> Anyway, this is a completely stand alone one-shot. The more you've meticulously studied every possible aspect of the Gallows and its dwellers, the more you will get the jokes. The only pairing is implied Orsino/Meredith.  
> Enjoy~ ^^

Grand Cleric Elthina sighed, well aware that the words she was about to say would effectively turn all the hostility of the Gallows in her direction. The usually serene Chantry lounge was brimming with the energy of its guests, the tension almost a tangible force. She could see it now, how very dangerous Kirkwall’s predicament was, how very accurate Serah Hawke’s argument had been. If something was not done to get through to these… _people_ , the Gallows would explode. The Viscount was, of course, far too busy juggling the Qunari and their haters to spend time mediating religious disputes. Thus, it was left up to Elthina to place herself delicately between a raging Meredith and a hissing Orsino and find out exactly how far gone they both were.

“What? It can’t be that hard, can it?” Hawke had shrugged with a lazy smile. “Just get them all drunk and let the secrets spill forth. Even Meredith wouldn’t draw her sword on holy ground, right?”

Elthina cleared her throat, looking over the seven templars and the two mages before her. “We are going to play ‘I never’,” she announced, hoping her benevolently holy tone of voice would effectively drain the ludicrousness from the words. “With Lyrium.”

Ser Karras snorted loudly.

Ser Thrask sighed in a tired way.

Ser Alrik stared indignantly.

Ser Emeric glanced warily about, formulating conspiracy theories.

Ser Carver scratched his head in bewilderment.

Knight-Captain Cullen blinked his darkly circled eyes.

First Enchanter Orsino raised one eyebrow skeptically.

Knight-Commander Meredith also raised an eyebrow but somehow managed to look even more skeptical than Orsino. They were probably competing.

Elsa’s blank, placid expression did not change in the slightest.

Elthina pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers. None of them had refused outright to participate so at the very least, it seemed she could rely on their devotion to the Maker. She prayed for the strength to see this through and continued.

“The rules will be very simple,” she explained patiently. “Each of you will state one thing that you have never done, taking turns in a clockwise direction. All those who have committed this act will drink at the end of every turn. If someone is dishonest, their glass of Lyrium will turn red; Elsa, a neutral party, will be facilitating this enchantment. Are there any questions?”

“With all due respect, your grace,” the Knight-Captain said, bowing his head as he addressed the Grand Cleric, “is the Templar Order under Chantry review? An exercise such as this seems quite likely to reveal…many private matters.”

“It is not our place to question what the Maker would have of us, Cullen,” Meredith stated, her clipped tone betraying her own distaste for the situation. She grimaced. “We can only comply.”

“Thank you, Meredith,” Elthina said gently. “Indeed, this is something of an inquisition and I am sorry to put you under the strain of talking about yourselves. More than that however, I have arranged this meeting in order to gain an understanding of what goes on in the Gallows and what sort of lives its denizens live. Rest assured, none shall be held accountable for sins confessed while in this room.” She nodded to Elsa. “Shall we begin?”

The seven templars and Orsino seated themselves around the lounge. The Knight-Commander and First Enchanter sat as far away from each other as possible. Thrask situated himself next to Carver and Emeric while Alrik shared a couch with Karras. Cullen sat to Meredith’s right, next to Carver. Elthina remained apart from them, sitting in a straight-backed chair as Elsa poured Lyrium into one-shot glasses.

“Knight-Commander,” Elthina acknowledged Meredith, “if you would start.”

“I never did blood magic,” Meredith said immediately, her eyes trained on Orsino.

The mage’s eyes narrowed dangerously but he, like everyone else in the group, did not touch his glass. The lyrium within swirled translucently, pale light emanating from its languid currents.

“ _Thank you_ , Meredith,” Elthina said for the second time, forcing a strained smile onto her lips. “Ser Karras?”

“I never doubted the Knight-Commander’s decisions,” Karras stated brashly, shooting a challenging look across the room.

Alrik drank bitterly. Thrask drank warily. Emeric drank uncomfortably. Orsino drank with relish. Cullen debated for a moment but did not drink.

“Well that’s good to know,” Meredith commented flatly then nodded to Karras. He bowed his head respectfully to her.

Alrik was next. “I never was related to an apostate,” he stated softly, making Thrask his obvious target.

Thrask met his gaze coolly and drank. Meredith drank. Carver drank. Some of the others shot them curious glances but neither elaborated.

Orsino steepled his long fingers. “I never kept scores of innocent people imprisoned like dogs,” he said.

No one drank.

“The lie detecting enchantment does not pick up on philosophical differences, First Enchanter,” Elsa felt obligated to explain.

Orsino sighed.

“I never requested the Blooming Rose’s special service,” Emeric said contemplatively.

The others stared at him blankly for a while. Carver coughed, his cheeks flushing as he threw back a shot. “I wouldn’t recommend it,” he mumbled.

Thrask cleared his throat, his eyes cold as he regarded Alrik. “I never raped a mage,” he said quietly.

Alrik glowered but slowly raised the glass to his lips. Meredith drank her lyrium in one gulp.

Elthina blinked in shock. “Knight-Commander?”

“It was only rape for the first few minutes,” Meredith clarified shamelessly. Dead silence followed her statement during which several templars tried very hard to banish the tantalizing thought of their superior officer’s sex life. A few others shot suspicious leers at the First Enchanter whose face was a carefully expressionless mask.

No one asked Alrik for an explanation- mostly because no one was surprised.

“ _Well_ ,” Elthina murmured weakly, wringing her hands as Elsa refilled the glasses. “Ser Carver?”

“Uh,” the youngest knight faltered self-consciously, “I never liked those statues in the Gallows.”

Alrik, Meredith and Karras drank. The Knight Commander’s eyes were starting to look too bright from all the lyrium.

Cullen glanced pensively down at his glass. “I never told Solona Amell that I love her.”

Carver drank. Cullen- and everyone else- stared at him. The youngest knight scratched the back of his head. “What? She’s my _cousin!_ ”

“That’s one round concluded,” Elthina said, attempting to regain her composure. “Let’s continue.”

“How long do you intend for this to go on?” Orsino asked, a note of impatience in his voice.

“Do you have something to hide, First Enchanter?” Meredith challenged. “This must be positively nerve-wracking for you.”

“Drinking amiably with a bunch of amoral, blood thirsty, lyrium-hazed templars?” the mage shot back. “Not at all, Meredith! I’ve never been more at ease!”

“First Enchanter,” Elsa spoke up monotonously. “It is the Knight-Commander’s turn to make an ‘I never’ statement.”

“Yes,” Orsino agreed through clenched teeth, “ _thank you_ , Elsa.”

“I never plotted against the Chantry,” Meredith supplied, still staring hard at the elf.

Carver looked with concern at the red swirling in his glass. “Um, my sister and I once stampeded a herd of our neighbor’s goats into a Chantry courtyard,” he confessed abruptly. “All the sisters were shrieking and the goatherd was citing witches-”

“Rest assured, Ser Carver,” the First Enchanter interrupted merrily, “I doubt that counts as proper subversion.”

“The expert has vindicated you,” Meredith proclaimed.

“There is no red in my glass, Knight-Commander,” Orsino reminded her.

“Ser Karras?” Elthina prompted, feeling a headache begin to throb in her temples.

“I never plotted against the Knight-Commander,” Karras stated. Some of the templars groaned. Karras was quickly losing popularity with everyone except the most lethal person in the room. He was probably fine with that.

Orsino was the first to drink, again without shame. Warily, Thrask drank. The three others who drank all offered excuses.

“I’ve kept a few things from your attention,” Alrik muttered to Meredith, “you are busy after all.”

“I…have continued investigating those disappearances…a few times,” Emeric sighed. “Nothing dangerous.”

“My sister made me do it,” Carver confessed in a rush, drinking deeply. “It was _all_ my sister.”

Meredith pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers. “I see…”

Alrik’s turn came again. “I never helped an apostate elude the Order.”

Thrask drank. Carver drank. Orsino drank. Something would have surely been said but Meredith drank too.

“We’re all young fools at some point,” she murmured bitterly. She glanced at the First Enchanter. “And some of us are old fools.”

Orsino smiled coldly at her. “I never posed for a nude portrait.”

Meredith drank. Alrik drank. Emeric drank. Cullen drank. Karras coughed irritably and drank. Ultimately and inexplicably, a lot of people drank.

Carver stared at them all in bewilderment. “What? Is this like the Kirkwall Templars thing? No one told me about it!”

“One might wonder where all these portraits are stashed,” Orsino remarked mildly, leaning back in his chair.

“Well,” Elthina grimaced. “Let’s continue, shall we?” Then she muttered, “Maker, let it be over soon.”

The game went around a few more times, Orsino using his turns to accuse Meredith of tyranny and Meredith using hers to try to back him into a corner. Thrask warred with Karras and Alrik. The lyrium gradually had its effect on the templars but rather than causing them to reveal more of their secrets, the subject matter of the game merely became more bizarre. There were a few disturbing revelations concerning phallic tubers, roleplaying and lyrium highs but none of them bore repeating.

Emeric randomly admitted to having never seduced a cloistered sister and in tears, Carver drank, muttering, “she was worldly. _Worldly_. There were a lot of giant spiders in Lothering! And goats! Maker, the unwholesome things they did with those goats!”

The subject of goats seemed to finally inspire the Knight Commander whose eyes were glassy from her many shots. “I never hired Hawke to frame Ser Conrad for summoning demons, sacrificing goats and howling!” she exclaimed fervently.

Orsino drank.

“Hah! I knew it!”


End file.
